LITTLE ROCK (AP) — A group advocating a hike in the state severance tax on natural gas claimed Wednesday that its canvassers were intimidated into leaving polling places where they were trying to gather signatures during Tuesday’s primary.

The chief backer of the anti-tax effort denied intimidating canvassers.

Sheffield Nelson, a former natural gas company executive and one-time Republican candidate for governor, said canvassers trying to get signatures from registered voters at precincts in Little Rock and east Arkansas were told they were breaking the law and had to move away from the voting sites.

Nelson said the people who told the canvassers to leave were wearing gear from Arkansans for Jobs and Affordable Energy, a group formed to oppose the tax hike proposal. The phone number for Arkansans for Jobs and Affordable Energy rings to the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce office, where Director Randy Zook denied the group had engaged in intimidation.

“Absolutely not, and it’s a serious allegation that needs to be proven or somebody needs to hold Sheffield accountable,” Zook said. “We had people passing out literature and observing and that was it.”

Nelson said he was relying on reports from his chief canvasser. He also said at one precinct in Forrest City a woman flashed a badge, said she was a federal agent and told the canvassers to leave.

Nelson said he’s working to track down the canvassers who were told to stop work and then decide his next step. Some canvassers who understood the law allows electioneering outside a buffer zone at polls’ entrances stood their ground, but some stopped collecting signatures, he said.

Wells are now taxed at between 1.25 percent and 5 percent of the value of the gas being taken from the land. The measure would increase the tax to 7 percent.

Arkansans for Jobs and Affordable Energy raised $1.3 million through the end of April to fight the proposal, while Nelson’s group raised $155,000 to support it, according to documents filed with the state Ethics Commission.

Nelson’s group is one of several trying to gather the tens of thousands of signatures needed to place initiated acts or constitutional amendments on the November ballot.

Brent Bumpers, who is helping organize a fundraising drive for the Regnat Populus group, said the group is using volunteers and paid canvassers for its proposal that would ban corporate political contributions, end gifts from lobbyists to legislators and double to two years the time a legislator has to be out of office before becoming a lobbyist.

The group said last week it had raised about half of the $225,000 it expects to need to attain the 62,507 signatures necessary to get on the ballot, though the fundraising push came less than two months before the deadline. With the money coming late, Bumpers, a son of former U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers, said the group didn’t have as many professionals gathering signatures Tuesday as it would have liked.

Marie Mainard O’Connell, who is involved in the Occupy Little Rock group and is helping collect signatures for the Regnat Populus proposal, said volunteers are coordinating with paid canvassers so their efforts don’t overlap.

“It was a good day yesterday (but) voter turnout was lower than we were hoping,” she said.

The coming Memorial Day weekend is an important one for people gathering signatures. The largest event in the state is Arkansas Riverfest in Little Rock, which drew an estimated 260,000 people over three days last year.

Nancy Todd, who is promoting a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize casinos in several counties, said she expects to have a strong presence this weekend.

“We think Riverfest will be huge, with the huge amount of people that will be here,” Todd said.

Her proposal and a similar one put forth by Michael Wasserman of Gainesville, Texas, are facing organized opposition by a group of legislators, business leaders and clergy that are urging people to not sign gambling petitions.

The casino measures require 78,133 signatures to get on the ballot. The number is larger because they are constitutional amendments.

Ryan Denham, an organizer behind the drive to legalize medical use of marijuana, said the group has raised $40,000 and probably needs another $50,000 to pay canvassers through the home stretch. Denham said the Arkansans for Compassionate Care group is a little more than halfway to reaching its signature total.

The group had canvassers at polling places Tuesday in El Dorado, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Harrison, Hot Springs, Jonesboro, Little Rock, Mountain Home and Mountain View, but turnout was so low that some canvassers moved to locations with more people.

“We were a little disappointed with turnout, but we ended up shifting gears and having a good day,” he said.